These schemes are designed to make it easier to get through the maze of the City's back streets without having to go round and round in circles. Some of them provide really useful alternatives to some pretty busy and narrow alternatives.

Some of the key new links help people cycle in and out of the City from Islington where there is also a strong network of two-way routes people can use on bikes. However, there is one key missing link, Bunhill Row. You can cycle in both direction on the streets directly north of here but then the route stops as soon as you get to Bunhill Row heading southbound and you're stuck having to detour via some fairly major junctions that take you quite far out of your way and expose you to some of the most dangerous parts of the London road network.

Bunhill Row is wide north-south road that should (in theory) allow you to get into the City from Old Street without having to use the lethal Old Street Roundabout. There are good bike links either side of Bunhill Row but the road itself acts as a kind of barrier to safe, sensible cycling from the north of the City. This should be a crucial entry point into the City for hundreds (more likely thousands?) of people cycling into the City from the north.

After some very tenacious campaigning (and this has been going on for years) from Islington Cyclists Action Group, the council has drawn up plans to allow a contraflow bike lane on Bunhill Row. However, it will only implement this plan if people show they genuinely want this link.